“When you say your life, you mean probably more, do you not?” inquired
the barrister who was examining her; and she answered him simply, “I
do--I mean that which to a woman is dearer than life itself;” and at
the words a sort of shiver of suppressed excitement ran through that
packed and crowded court--a shiver that made as though one heart-throb
of sympathy and of admiration. But more than all else did Fenella owe
her salvation to the man who stood up for a whole hour to defend her.
Clitheroe Jacynth, it was said afterward, made his professional
reputation over the defense of Lady Francis Onslow. He had been known
to be clever, he had been reckoned among the rising men of his day, but
never until now had the world quite realized the power that was in him.
He had all the eloquence, the fire, the passionate pleading of a man
whose whole soul was in the cause that he advocated, and his arguments
carried all before them by the sheer force of will and talent. No one
who saw the dark, passionate face--the eyes that shone with righteous
wrath--who listened to the strong, sinuous words that seemed to burn
into the hearts of his hearers as they fell, like living fire, from his
lips, ever forgot Jacynth as he was that day. And when, at the last, he
looked round the court, and, after a moment of silence, more eloquent
than words, began with a deep and low-voiced impressiveness; “I see
around me here a crowd of men--fathers, husbands, and brothers--men
who have women they love at home, and whose honor lies in the hands
of those women. Which of us, my brothers--my fellow-men,” he cried
suddenly, aloud, stretching forth his right arm in a passionate appeal
to those before him, “which of us all, did those women whom we love
stand where my unfortunate client stood upon that fatal night, alone in
the darkness, with no arm to defend her, no ear to hear her cry, with
nothing but a certain and a shameful dishonor before her--which of us,
I say, would not desire that the women we love and hold sacred, you and
I, and every true man in all England, should do as this woman did; and
save her honor at all costs?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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